Day-in-the-life of a Technical Writer

In January, we discussed how to get a job in technical writing: how to search for a job, craft your resume, write a cover letter, and build your portfolio. Graduates of professional technical communicator programs tend to have a sense of ambivalence about what to expect in their new careers. Several questions flood their minds. Is the work world really like the picture my lecturers have painted it out to be? What can I expect? What should I really be looking for? This article chronicles a day in my life as a technical communicator. I hope that sharing my experiences will help you better understand what to expect when you enter the real world.

Starting the day right

Preparation for my workday begins the night before. I follow the Getting Things Done (affiliate link) method by David Allen for planning out my week and workdays (detailed blog post here). By the end of my planning session, I know the meetings I have the next day, which deliverables are due (if any), and what documentation project I need to focus on that day. I juggle several projects, so it’s important to have a focus project for each day to reduce context-switching.

I then break down the focus project into tasks I need to get done that day. Some of these tasks include: meeting people to get information, drafting, editing, reviewing and publishing.

I am lucky to work at a company that understands that every individual has different work environment and timing preferences, and encourages us to figure out a schedule that works best for us. For me, I love getting my writing tasks done in the morning even before I reach the office. Most workdays, I go to my favorite cafe at Union Square, get myself a Chai Latte, and put in an hour of Deep Work (affiliate link) (detailed blog post here). In this hour, I work on tasks that require a fresh mind and focus: drafting a technical document or studying how a piece of technology works. I time myself in Pomodoros (detailed blog post here). Once I get at least 2 Pomodoros of the most important task of the day done, I walk to my office at around 11 AM.

View from my favorite writing place in NYC (Peet’s Coffee – Cap One at Union Square)

At the Office

The first thing I do when I arrive in the office is pour myself a large glass of water and sift through emails and Slack messages. I adjust my task list based on these emails and messages, if required.

I then do some “shallow work” for an hour at noon. Shallow work includes editing something I had written before, processing GitHub issues, and publishing stuff to our Docs site.

At around 1 PM, I have lunch and check my emails and forums such as Reddit and Hackernews. All my meetings are usually post-lunch. This is the time to socialize, meet my colleagues, discuss work projects with them, get information, and so on. The 1 PM to 4 PM time slot is when my energy is the lowest in the day. So, I don’t do any writing tasks then. I leave work around 5 PM and head home for another Deep Work sprint.

Free Fridays

At Cockroach Labs, we have a thing called Free Fridays, which basically means you can do whatever you choose to do. You can continue working on your work projects, or put work is placed on the back burner and work on any personal projects, or just take the day off. I usually do my most difficult writing tasks at home on Fridays, and also get in an hour at the gym.

This is just a basic outline of my work day. Each technical writer may have a different experience. Following are some day-in-the-life blogs of other technical writers that I found interesting. I hope that sharing my routine and the routine of other technical writers gives you a clearer picture of what it is like to work in the industry:

Now that we have discussed what a technical writing job looks like on a daily basis, let’s move on to how to succeed at a technical writing job. In my opinion, the most important skill for a technical writer is figuring out the scope of work and planning it well. And that’s what we will discuss in detail in next Wednesday’s blog post. Subscribe to stay tuned!